Suddenly a shadow fell over me. I looked up, thinking instantly of the malevolent spirit-form that had overflown me on the dreamtrails. But it was only that the rift had closed up overhead. Gahltha plodded on unperturbed, though I could feel he was weary of trudging through the icy stream. I tried to make myself equally patient, but it was hard to travel without a clear idea of where I was going.

‘Why do the funaga have to know where they are to go?’ Maruman asked. To my surprise, his tone lacked the ire that usually accompanied such a question.

‘I am the Seeker,’ I sent. ‘How am I to seek without thinking of what is ahead of me?’

‘ElspethInnle is Innle who alone can seek what is to be sought. Marumanyelloweyes is the Moonwatcher, sent to guide ElspethInnle where she must go,’ the old cat sent imperturbably, and to my annoyance he sank back to sleep.

I cast a longing glance at the strip of vanishing sky behind me, before resolutely turning my eyes to the pitchy darkness ahead, wondering why it was that whenever I was pursuing my quest, the way ahead always seemed darker and colder than the way behind me. I wished as I had done many times before that I might live in the moment as beasts did, instead of thinking and worrying about the future, which was so infinitely changeable as to defy even the power of a strongly Talented futureteller. After all, if one could not ever truly know what the future would hold, what use was there in making plans? But the only time I had ever found it easy to live in the moment was when there was great danger threatening. When the danger passed, the transcendent revelation of the moment faded, as if the mind could not hold such a thing for long.

I cleared my thoughts and made myself listen attentively to the slapping of water against the stone walls, the muted thud and splash of Gahltha’s hoofs in the stream, but almost at once I was distracted by light ahead. It was too soft and yellow to be daylight, unless it came from some oblique and filtered source. Then ahead I saw a glimmering patch of brightness on the wall of the rift. I was almost upon it before I realised that it was a cluster of the little taint-devouring creatures that dwelt in damp highland caves and crannies.

There was another patch of them on the opposite wall, and further along the rift they were on both walls. Still further there was such a multitude of the creatures that they lined both walls. I had never seen such a huge colony of them before. It must be the moisture attracting them, for the walls of the rift now glistened with water, trickling down from a hundred tiny cracks to join the stream running along the rift.